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Donyale Luna

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Donyale Luna
Luna, in a 1966Twenshoot
Born
Peggy Ann Freeman

(1945-08-31)August 31, 1945
Detroit, Michigan,U.S.
DiedMay 17, 1979(1979-05-17)(aged 33)
Rome,Italy
Cause of deathHeroin overdose
Occupation(s)Model, actress
Spouse
Luigi Cazzaniga
​
(m.1976)​
Children1
Modeling information
Height6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)[1]
Hair colorBlack
Eye colorBrown

Peggy Ann Freeman(August 31, 1945 – May 17, 1979), known professionally asDonyale Luna,was an American model and actress who gained popularity in Western Europe during the late 1960s.[2][3]Generally cited as "the first Black supermodel",[4][5]Luna was the firstAfrican-Americanmodel to appear on the cover of the British edition ofVogue,in March 1966.[6][7]

Luna made severalunderground filmswithAndy Warholbeginning in 1965, and following the experimental filmQui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?(1966), she appeared in Otto Preminger'sSkidoo(1968) and Federico Fellini'sSatyricon(1969).

Early life

[edit]

Peggy Ann Freeman was born inDetroit, Michiganto working-class parents Nathaniel Freeman and Peggy Freeman (née Hertzog) in 1945.[8]She was one of three daughters, Lillian, Peggy Ann, and Josephine.[9]Her father had moved to Detroit from Georgia as part of theGreat Migration.[10]Her father, of African-American heritage, worked in production at theFordplant, and her mother, of African-American and German heritage, worked as a secretary for the Young Women's Christian Association and had been given the nickname "Big Peggy" to differentiate her from Peggy-Ann, who was "Little Peggy". Luna's parents married and divorced on four separate occasions due to their "headstrong characters" and Nathaniel's relatives’ alcoholism. Luna and her sisters had a "financially stable upbringing in a middle-class neighbourhood of Detroit" on Scotten Avenue. As a child, her father frequently took her on trips to localcinemas,and, in summer, to swim at the "Kronk Gym"in Detroit.[11][12]

Luna attendedCass Technical High Schoolin Detroit

She attended the Detroit High School of Commerce, where she studied data processing, andCass Technical High School,where she studied journalism, performing arts and languages, and was in the school choir. Outside of school, she participated in local community theater and the experimental Concept East Theater.[13][11][14]It was during this time, at age 18, that she began calling herself "Donyale George Luna.” This was thought to have "been her way of dealing with a turbulent home life" when her mother began raising the family as a single parent. She was also said to have spoken "not with a broad A or a French R, but in an accent she'd invented". Her mother said its tone "was like she was singing".[15][16][17][14]The name Luna has been speculated to have been chosen for its "symbolic dimensions, reflecting her yearning for complete, far-flung autogeny", or a reference to theSpace Race.At this time she wanted to pursue a career in acting.[11]Luna's sister later described her as being "a very weird child, even from birth, living in a wonderland, a dream.” She routinely created fantasies about her background or "origins" and herself. She was known then as an aspiring actress. An early boyfriend, Sanders Bryant, III, recalled first meeting her writing a play at lunchtime. She took roles such as Cherry inPaint Your Wagon,Ariel inThe Tempest,Chastity inAnything Goesand Jean inStage Door.After rehearsals, inspired by thebeatniks,she visited coffeehouses near theWayne State Universitycampus with her boyfriend, dressed in head to toe black. On weekends, she often crossed the bridge to neighboringWindsor, Ontario,or traveled to other nearby parts of Canada. She became known to Roland Sharette, the managing director of the Detroit Civic Center Theatre, as a "kook" because she had a habit of walking around barefoot "even down the street.” During the 1963 run ofPaint Your Wagonshe fed popcorn to pigeons when they rehearsed outdoors.[18]: 88 [19][14]

Contrasting her time in Detroit with her time in Europe modeling, she later noted: "Back in Detroit I wasn't considered beautiful or anything."[2]A fellow student at Cass Technical, Verna Green, noted "She was such a striking image, I couldn't forget her.... She looked like an oddball to the run-of-the-mill student. Not enough people had told her how strikingly beautiful she was."[20]She was not a "fashion-conscious" student; her attire mostly consisting of "simple black skirts and long loose sleeved tops.” She stated that in her time in Cass Technical, she "wasn't accepted because I talked funny, I looked funny, and I was a weirdo to everyone. I grew up realizing I was strange."[14]

In October 1964, she moved to New York to pursue acting and modeling, and found work as a junior secretary at an "electronic cabling firm onVarick Street."After joining an actors’ union, she moved into an apartment on Broadway, sharing the space with a roommate. Her sister Lillian later recalled" she packed so little it seemed like she was going on an overnight trip rather than to live in New York.”[21]

In January 1965, her mother fatally shot her father in self-defense as he was reportedly abusive, coming to Luna's childhood home drunk and threatening her mother "just steps away from the family home.” Lillian witnessed the incident, acknowledging the shooting to be accidental.[21]Luna received the news three months after the fact, and stayed in New York, which is said by psychologists to be a common coping mechanism for familial loss and trauma.[18]: 92 [22][23]In 1966, she reported to a journalist, "My mother is worried about me. She doesn't know that I have already been hurt."[24]

For the next five years, Luna divided her time between Europe and North America. She professed during the filming ofSalomein 1971 that she wished to quit modeling and focus on acting, and that she "professo la magia y el'amore e vivo en el mondo vio, deliziomente surreale" (speaks of magic and love, living in a deliciously surreal world) having become heavily influenced bySurrealismandNew Agethought by this time; however, she continued accept modeling work in the 1970s.[25]By 1972, when she had moved toRome,she was working for Danish photographerGunnar Larsen[fr],modeling for thecouturierTed LapidusalongsideVeruschkaandJean Shrimptonon the streets ofParis,earning "$1000... for the day" ($6,250 in 2020).[26]

Modeling career

[edit]

Detroit and New York

[edit]

In 1963, near Detroit’s Fisher Building, Luna met English photographerDavid McCabe.[11]McCabe suggested she move to New York City to pursue modeling. Her mother initially discouraged this plan, suggesting that she become a nurse instead. Luna persisted, and her mother facilitated her moving in with an aunt near theNew York HarborinNew Jersey.[27][15]

In October 1964, Luna contacted McCabe, and he sent out her photographs to various agencies. McCabe introduced her toHarper's BazaareditorNancy White,fashion photographerRichard Avedon,and senior fashion editorChina Machado;White signed her to an exclusive contract for the remainder of 1964, while Avedon served as her manager.[22][28][2][29][30]Her first job as a model was a shoot forMademoisellestarringWoody Allen.In November 1964, Luna moved out of her aunt's apartment and into an apartment on Broadway in New York City, sharing the space with a roommate.[31]

Periana, a Black model inPaco Rabannein 1971. Luna modeled for Rabanne in 1964, bringing derision from American journalists.

In 1964, working as a model forPaco Rabanne,Luna witnessed American journalists spitting in the face of Rabanne because his fashion show used only Black models.[32]

Nancy White had Luna's likeness sketched into an illustration for the January 1965 cover ofHarper's Bazaar,replacing a pre-planned cover—the first Black person ever put on the cover ofHarper's Bazaarin its then 98 years of publication. However, Luna was portrayed asethnically ambiguous.[33]The sketch was her first work forHarper's Bazaar,and included six other illustrations in the January 1965 issue.[33]Denzinger described drawing "a total of 40 brush-and-ink studies for that session, in a one-room studio apartment onLexington Avenue....I remember that the Bazaar editors came to the apartment with the clothes, and that uniformed cops watched while Donyale modeled and I drew her. "[34]

In the April 1965 edition she was again photographed by Avedon in the "What's Happening" editorial, along withPaul McCartney,Jean Shrimpton,andRingo Starr.[19]The piece included a description of her as showing "The tall strength and pride of movement of aMasai Warrior."This description was picked up in an article by theSarasota Herald Tribune.Finding the language and comparison deeply prejudiced and racialized,Herald Tribunewriters explored and wrote of work prospects of African-American women.[22][2][27][35][36][37]In the same month, Luna received news of her father's death but decided against returning to Detroit home for his funeral. Around this time, Luna also began having problems with Avedon. In an interview with an Italian magazine in 1975, she recalled that "The more successful she became, the more controlling and possessive her fashion-photographer-manager became".[38]

Luna's career began to slow down when she met with thecolor barof print publishing at the time. Southern U.S. advertisers had reported complaints against the inclusion of Luna's images inHarper's Bazaar,pulling their advertising revenue, with readers cancelling subscriptions. DesignersMainbocherandNorman Norellrefused to dress Luna in their clothes, andHarper's BazaarownerHearst Communicationshad stopped Avedon working with Luna after her contract expired.[11][37][19]Richard Avedon believed that he was no longer allowed to work with Luna due to "racial prejudice and the economics of the fashion business.”[22][28]McCabe later stated he believed that "the magazine world really wasn't ready for photographing beautiful Black women”.[28]

Black models were shown only through "a racial script that brought together bothprimitivismand modernity as the material precondition for participation within the industry, "[19]in anexoticnoble savagerole which required Black models to present only as outsiders fromprimitive African cultures.Brigid Keenanwrote that Luna "until then any Black person who appeared in a fashion picture was usually there because they'd been popped into the background as a kind of prop" such as Bani Yelverton, who was in 1958 placed "on the far right of the foldout, so she could be easily torn out of the magazine by [offended] readers".[39]Keenan further wrote how the othering "exotic Black model trope" perpetrated by white media creators that "Luna's breakthrough into the glossy magazines meant that from then on a Black model might actually have some sort of career in front of her... yet extraordinary as she was, Ms. Luna did not have a style that other women could adopt." She looked more like she was going to attack you, "wrote one Black girl. White fashion editors used her and immediate successors for impact, as freakishclothes-horseson which they could photograph their outrageous garments. [Her] acceptance... no doubt boosted the morale of the Black community, but she could not give them a look of their own. "[40]

Following the death of her father and a short-lived marriage of 10 months in New York, Luna had a nervous breakdown and spent time recovering in hospital at the end of 1965. Two years later, she toldThe New York Timesthat she fled New York for Europe at the end of 1965, when she found "they said beautiful things on one side and turned around and stabbed you in the back."[30]She would later remember of the move to Europe, "I wouldn't have to be bothered with political situations when I woke up in the morning—I could live and be treated as I felt, without having to worry about the police coming along".[11]

Avedon (who had moved over to the AmericanVoguein 1966) requested Luna again for a shoot aroundNorthern Japanfeaturing furs, tellingDoon Arbushe had requested her specifically because of his association with her as an "extenuated Black girl" given "there was no way of not being reminded of Egypt and not being reminded ofWatusisand Africans, "deftly conflating African culture, and employing the prescribed primitive racial script of the exotic Black model which Luna had been portrayed in her shoots with him inHarper's Bazaarwhich compared Luna to an animal as she was dressed in animal print.Diana Vreeland,along withAlexey Brodovitch,prevented Avedon from using Luna as the only model in the shoot and suggestedVeruschkainstead for the 27-pageGreat Fur Caravanshoot published in October 1966.

ABC Jean Shrimpton

However, in 1966, AmericanVoguenamed her the Model of the Year.[41]Living in London, she was described inJetmagazine as "the most photographed girl of 1966... challengingJean Shrimptonfor position (and bankroll) as the model most in demand in Europe'shaute couturehouses. "[42]

By 1966, Luna had become an internationally recognized model and in November 1966, Luna appeared inCosmopolitan.In April 1967 Donyale also frequentedTrude Heller'sdiscotheque inGreenwich Villageand covered a number of albums forBlue Note Recordssuch asLush Life,Mustang,A New Conception,Let 'em RollandEasy Walker.[43]Luna appeared in AmericanVoguein August 1969 and in 1970 in an advertisement for a colored contacts company which she often wore, it was reported she "changes her eyes to match her moods as she flits through Rome's posh parties while picture making forCarlo Ponti."[44]

Move to London

[edit]

Luna arrived in London in December 1965.[15]Londonis where she made her name as a model, emerging in Swinging London, as a growing youth cultural revolution was drawing international attention. Elements includedBeatlemaniaandMary Quant'sminiskirtswith other models of color, includingKellie Wilsonand Hazel Collins wearing the stylized bobs ofVidal Sassoon,Mods,Teddy Boysand bright colors and patterns and fashions such as those sold in shops includingBarbara Hulanicki’sBibaor seen in the street culture ofCarnaby StreetorChelsea.[11][45][19]She was photographed in London byDavid Bailey,William Klein,Helmut Newton,Charlotte March (image in infobox, above) andWilliam Claxton.Keen to join the London arts scene, she became friends withMick Jagger,Julie Christie,Michael Caine,Iain QuarrierandYul Brynner.[22][28]She rented an apartment near theThamesRiver and bought a petMaltese dogshe named Christianne.[46]

An artists rendition of the March 1966 cover

In March 1966, about three months after having arrived in London, she appeared on the cover of British Vogue, becoming the first African-American model to appear on the cover of anyVoguemagazine,[15]her image[47]captured by photographerDavid Bailey,who described her as "extraordinary-looking, so tall and skinny,... She was like an illustration, a walking illustration." Shooting her for the cover, Bailey noted "I didn't care what she was—she could have been a fucking Martian for all I cared." He thought the editorial staff atVogueHouse were pleased with their selection of a Black cover model, but observed that "the sales people always had a problem [with using her]."[15]She was chosen byBeatrix Miller,then the editor of BritishVogue,for "her bite and personality.” Miller described Luna as "[happening] to be a marvelous shape... All sort of angular and immensely strange and tall".[29]The shot composition was inspired by SpanishsurrealistPicasso'socular-centric portraiturewith "one of Luna's eyes peered suggestively from between her fingers.” She wore wearing aChloédress and Mimi de N earrings in the shot. In the editorial images she was dressed inChristian Diorsilk tunics, Mod-style dresses byPierre Cardin,and a silverYves Saint Laurentdress.[28][2][22][11]

In popular internet lore such as onblogs,it has been speculated that the shot was angled so "Luna's face, most notably her lips and nose, are... obscured on her BritishVoguecover, also somewhat hiding her race, "a proponent offeaturismcoded inprivilegeandEurocentric beauty standards.[2][48][49][50]However, in 2019, her family revealed the shot was chosen as "a single heavily lined eye... visible through her fingers, which form a V for Vogue".[11]

In March 1966, she appeared in a jewelry spread in the German magazineTwen,photographed by Charlotte March. Fellow model and friendPat Clevelandnoted: "She had no tits, but lots of presence; we'd walk down the street and men's mouths would drop open in awe. When we walked into restaurants, people would stop eating and stand up and applaud. She was like a mirage, or some kind of fantasy."[20][22]

Luna also went on to work for FrenchVogue.Bethann Hardisonstated of Luna that "No one looked like her. She was like a really extraordinary species."[28]Timemagazine in an article titled "The Luna Year" (1966), described her as: "a new heavenly body who, because of her striking singularity, promises to remain on high for many a season. Donyale Luna, as she calls herself, is unquestionably the hottest model in Europe at the moment. She is only 20, a Negro, hails from Detroit, and is not to be missed if one readsHarper's Bazaar,Paris Match,Britain'sQueen,the British, French or American editions ofVogue."[51]She also appeared inLondon Life,a monthly fashion magazine, in a shoot as a shop window display model at aWallisdepartment store in London.[52]

Yves Saint Laurent 1965; Donyale wears a blue version inVoguein 1966[1]
Models in the Mod Style by Cardin (1966)

In April she appeared again inVogueUK, shot byDavid Baileyin a feature calledThis Summer's dancing patternsin mod-styled luxury brands. She then appeared on the cover ofHarper's BazaarUK in June 1966. Her features and skin color had not been obscured in this cover, shot byBill King.

In the October 15 edition of BritishVogue,she was featured in aKleinshoot withAudrey Hepburn.

In 1967, the world-leading fiberglassmannequindesignerAdel Rootsteinreleased a model based on Luna's statuesque figure. The previous figure been thepopularmodelTwiggy.Jetdescribed the Luna-inspired mannequins as "unmistakeably Negro, excellently sculpted and posed, and dressed in the London Mod styles" and reported that Adel Rootstein had paid Luna to pose for the work at $105 per hour ($830 per hour today).[53][15][54]She was also noted to be working in New York for a short period in September 1967, but her flatmates "thought they were all going to get kicked out soon because Donyale was making about $500 worth of calls to Europe every month".[55]Another mannequin model was made byLester Gaba,who made both a black and white version.[56]She was also shot in Rabanne byPeter KnappforThe Sunday Times.

On the March 27, 1968, she appeared on the cover of the British magazineQueenin a headwrap.

In November 1968, Luna and a party of five, including Iain Quarrier and Mia Farrow, went for breakfast at theMayfairCavendish Hotel, Jermyn Street, St James's, London, and, at 4 a.m., were asked to leave, with the men, who were not wearing ties, being informed they were "not properly dressed.” When Quarrier noted that other seated men were not wearing ties, Luna asked the managers if it was because she was colored. Eventually, all five were denied service in the hotel restaurant and were removed by police for causing a disturbance. In her usual extravagance, Luna "arrived in a maroon-coloured Rolls-Royce, wearing a yellow coat of Mongolian lamb’s wool... [and] knee-high blue suede boots... [where] Luna accused the police of lying, but her claims went unheard.” Quarrier defended Luna in the London Bow Street court, noting when the judge, Kenneth Harrington, said: "I am quite sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with Miss Luna's colour" Quarrier shouted from the dock in the courtroom "that is not true[!]." Quarrier would eventually be charged £10 for disturbing the peace.

Luna later summarized the event for the American press, saying that "rowdiness" had occurred, and that her party was asked to leave "because I am colored. It was a nightmare. The hotel staff and police were pushing me around. The hotel refused to tell us why we were being thrown out."[57][58][59][60][61]

In the same month she was shot for BritishVogueagain byHarry Peccinotti.

By 1969, she was again being paid "$1,000 a week" ($7,000 in 2020).[62]

Paris

Guy Laroche Mini-dress (1968)

Luna was initially supposed to coverVogue Parisbefore BritishVoguewhen she arrived in Europe in December 1965.Edmonde Charles-Rouxwho had fostered the talent of William Klein, had shot Luna for the cover, but prior to release, the cover was changed overnight to that of two white models, in an effort to avoid offending readers for its capacity to "shock" because Luna was a woman of color.[63]She was put forward for the cover by the French editor Charles-Roux who was subsequently fired on the charge ofSi Newhousefor attempting to put a Black model on the cover, a feat which would take another 22 years whenNaomi Campbellwas put on the cover, but even then only on the grounds thatYSLwould otherwise withdraw advertising revenue.[64]

By 1966, of her modeling, she was quoted as saying "Being what I am, I can get what I ask".[65]Paco Rabanne had her model in his "debut Paris show, entitled '12 Unwearable Dresses'" designed for dancing in, in which fellow London based modelKellie Wilsonalso appeared, working in the spring of 1966 she was modeling forParis Matchwho had 11 different photographers doing shoots for the magazine including on "the landing gear of an airborne helicopter" and underwater with "her robe streaming behind her". She was shot forGuy Larochefor Match on a skating rink and by Charles Courrière (b.1928) inEmanuel Ungarofor the Spring/Summer collection.[66][67][68][69]

She appeared on the cover ofEllefor July 1966 shot byRonald Traegerin a long toga dress byGaleries Lafayetteand in beach shoot withJill Kennington.[70]

Sydney

Pop-art paper dress (1967)

In 1967, in Sydney, she modeled several paper dresses for the store Paraphernalia, paper dresses having been a fad popular with teenage girls.[68]

She appeared on a catwalk in Sydney for the "Donyale Luna spectacular" fashion walk.[71]

Italy

Luna appeared in the Italian magazineAmicain a number of animal print and fur coats in 1966 andVogueItalia shot byGian Paolo Barbieri.She modelled later in a number of camera advertisements in 1968. She bought an apartment in Italy in 1970, and drove around in her Cinquenta car, and "fold herself into like an accordion, squeezing her knees up to her chin" to get to new modeling shoots.[72]In January 1970, she appeared in the Italian adult magazinePlaymenin a number of fishnet-style outfits, in a multiple-page spread. In this time she was reportedly thrown out by Italian police for not having the correct paperwork to reside in Italy, but her husband recalled later that she was harassed for her skin color in Rome.[73]

When Luna moved to Italy in 1974 she was a collaborator with her husband in photographic shoots and other media such as a "hand-illustrated fairy tale, avant-garde film scripts and beautiful coloured prints" which remain unpublished. She was said to be the most creative as a content creator of art in this period of her life.[11]However, historians have also noted she is said to have felt a deep sense of "existential aloneness" in this period. In a short prose piece entitledLUNAFLYLABY,she wrote a self-aware "part confessional [work which] alludes to an insular and at times stifling childhood, the excitement and challenges Luna experienced in the fashion world [and] her move to Europe" and how as a biracial woman, these "societal forces conspired to render Black womenINVISIBLE"versus herVISIBLE LIFE,which is heavily present throughout the work in the motifs ofVISIONS(her spiritual visions as other Black women in history in her writings she refers to asFuture Visioning) and "succumbing toVISUAL MISTAKES"(her desire to achieve her own form of beauty which she considered herart,such as modeling photographs or films) due to her conflicting position as a biracial woman in her environment in her career.[74][75]She also modeled for artistPeter Beardin 1977.[76]

Return to North America

[edit]

She would return for a year between 1973 and April 1974, with her work later published and returning again between October 1974 and June 1975, to the US to do runway modeling in New York andCaliforniaandToronto.[77]She appeared on the cover of Warhol's magazineInterviewfor October 1974.[78]Luna then appeared in a nude photo layout in the April 1975 issue ofPlayboy,photographed by her husband Luigi Cazzaniga. In the shoot she depicts herself as "characters of her own devising - as an angel soaring over the Los Angeles skyline or as a mermaid perched on a rock by the Pacific Ocean". Powell notes, "Although fulfilling Playboy's prerequisite for female nudity, the photographs were far from titillating or sexually explicit. Luna seemed not only at ease with her nudity, but completely beyond societal structures and moral rectitude." She was also noted for defying the usual body type portrayed in the magazine of more "voluptuous" women with her smaller build, placing more emphasis on herspiritual"visions" which occurred on her photography shoots such as inPlayboy.

Mary Quant model at a show in 1969 in a miniskirt

[11][79]

By this time, however, Luna's modeling career began to decline due to a variety of factors, including a shift in her career from modeling into acting and a negative reception from mainstream popular media, which chastised her "dependency on drugs like heroin, LSD, pot and her eccentric behavior" (see Artistry section).[80][20]A designer for whom Luna once worked said, "She took a lot of drugs and never paid her bills".[81]Beverly Johnsonin 1974 was asked about how herVoguecover had been won by other Black women like Luna, said "[Luna] doesn't wear shoes winter or summer. Ask her where she's from—Mars?She went up and down the runways on her hands and knees. She didn't show up for bookings. She didn't have a hard time, she made it hard for herself. "[82][80]Johnson later acknowledged in 2016 that Luna had "made it possible for models like me and others" and that "Luna is one of several Black models everyone needs to know" being "one of those legends in our industry; one of the shoulders I stood on."[20]

In June 1975 she attended aZandra Rhodesshow at the Circle in the Square in New York where she was seen "posing in a veiled harem outfit".[83][84]

Luna's walk

[edit]

Luna did have a regular walk for the catwalk, defined as "a free-form, hip-popping strut", but she was also known among the high fashion circles for her unconventional walking styles still used by models like Pat Cleveland. Luna was known for her eccentricity since childhood which derived from her time in acting doing local andexperimental theaterin Detroit.[85]She was often drawn to "radical creatives", avant-garde artists such as Dali and Warhol and she extended these influences to her model career. In a method she developed based onmethod actingknown in internet lore[clarification needed][citation needed]asmethod modeling,she developed her own theatrical style of catwalk walks such as "crawling like a lion, grooving to the music or suddenly freezing and making direct eye contact with journalists", "walking like a robot, stopping abruptly midway through a promenade, crawling on all fours", "like a stalking animal", "sometimes slither like a snake" or simply having "laid down and rolled from one end of the runway to the other". Method modeling employs techniques "within one's individual consciousness... [and] technical skills in body movement are combined with camera awareness and artistic freedom" which allowed an audience to view the model's body as a work of 3D or visual art, like considering how a sculptor considers dimensions in sculpting the human form, or using more vivid body language to express a wider function related to a theme to sell a product.[86]Luna's Method modeling background was more rooted in theater technique, and as such was a derivative ofperformance art.Bill Cunninghamdescribed watching the experience as how "Her body moves like a panther, her arms, the wings of an exotic bird, the long neck suggests a black trumpet swan.... The audience responds with shattering applause - for the model's performance rather than the designer's clothes. It is the birth of a new fashion era - that of the spectacular show that rivals any on Broadway." "The coterie of international designers for whom she often modeled (André Courrèges,Yves Saint Laurent,Rudi Gernreich,Mary Quant, Paco Rabanne) encouraged such displays, equating them to their own exuberant designs and to the rebellious conduct of their youthful... clientele ".[11][87][15][32][88][89]

Covers

1965 - 1974

Acting career

[edit]

Luna had initially planned to work in theater, having acted in Detroit after school hours, including bit parts in Detroit's repertory theaters.[29][30]When she joined theater camp in 1964, she was remembered by her acting tutor David Rambeau as "warm and naive", he recalled.[88]"I never planned to be a model when I was in Detroit," she told a reporter in 1966. "I wanted to be a starving actress in New York."[11]She soon also began moving in circles associated with experimental theater likeThe Living Theatre.[90][91]

On British TV she appeared onLate Show Londonon March 14 andTheEamonn AndrewsShowon May 1, 1966.[92][93]On December 12, 1966 (11:15pm – 1:00am), she appeared onThe Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.[94]

Luna appeared in several films produced byAndy Warhol,including his series of shortScreen Testsin 1965. Among the "stars" Warhol engaged for these short films, each roughly four minutes, Luna is notable as one of four African-Americans in the series.[95][15][96]CriticWayne Koestenbaumdescribed Luna in theScreen Testsas "pure diva, presenting a delicious mobile excess of mannerism".[97]

Luna also appeared in the feature lengthCampin 1965, Warhol's "satire of his own world" where she dances to theRamsey Lewis Trioinstrumental "The 'In' Crowd"wearing a backless dress and fur stole.[11]She is the eponymous star of Warhol'sDonyale Luna(1967), a 33-minute color film in which she playsSnow White,wearing blue contacts.[83]

In 1966 upon having moved to London, she appeared inMichelangelo AntonionisBlowup(1966), a satire of fashion photography. Luna also appeared inThe Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus(1968) as the assistant of a circus performer'sfire-eateract.[11]

In the French filmWho are you Polly Magoo?(1966) she played a model dressed in conical and "almost unwearable" abstract silver dress constructions shot by William Klein.[98]

Luna's only mainstream Hollywood film was the 1968Otto PremingercomedySkidoo,in which she was featured as the mistress of crime boss "God", who was portrayed byGroucho Marx.Preminger also signed her withMGMfor 3 years after she secured the role at a party forTwiggy.By this period, she had sold her apartments in London and Paris to live full-time in Italy and focus on acting.[99]In 1969 she appeared as a background character in a television set in the filmDillinger is Dead.[100]

In the 1969Federico FellinifilmFellini Satyricon,an Italian film portraying the fall ofAncient Rome,she portrayed the witch Oenothea, who according to one commentator, "in a trade-off with a wizard long ago ended up with fire between her legs. And it's real fire too, because Fellini shows us a scene in which a long line of foolish-looking peasants wait with unlit torches at Oenothea's bed. When their time comes, each devoutly places his torch between her legs to her sex, and, Poof."[101]

She then appeared in the 1970Happeningdocumentary filmSoft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí,a biography narrated byOrson Wellesfor French TV. Luna's last acting role was the title character in the 1972 Italian filmSalomé,directed byCarmelo Bene.

In May 1973 at theCannes Film Festival,considering herself as an international star, she pitched her life story to European and American film production company executives, likeBerry Gordy,who was at Cannes supportingDiana Rossin promoting her new filmLady Sings the Blues.Interest was sparked in relation toThe Battle of Versailles Fashion Show,but the pitch was never taken any further. In an interview for the Italian publicationPanorama,Luna claimed that Gordy based the 1975 filmMahoganyon this pitch.[102]

Death

[edit]

During the early morning hours of May 17, 1979, Donyale Luna died from a heroin overdose in a clinic in Rome at age 33. Luna was survived by her husband, Luigi Cazzaniga, and her 18-month-old daughter, Dream.[103][104]

Artistry

[edit]

Luna was known to be a muse ofSalvador Dalí,and acted in many of the ways Dali did in accord with the philosophy of Surrealism. The American photographer William Claxton introduced Luna to Dalí when he met her in Catalonian village ofCadaqués,becoming Dali's lifelong muse whom he would refer to as "the reincarnation ofNefertiti".[11]Artworks show how she would stand on a half-submerged piano which Dali has submerged himself for her to stand on, Claxton shooting "Dali drawing impromptu traceries on Luna's body" (aline artpiece on a cream dress) while she wore it or emerging from a human-sized egg full of red paint which made into an 1 hour long surrealist film being "a sciptless series of happenings, all centred on images of birth and creativity" in plastic costumes designed by Paco Rabanne.[105]She could be found "lying on a bed of fresh fish" in Dali's home.[11][106][107]She was also known to carry around a $1 million check according to the supermodel Pat Cleveland, "a legitimate cheque from her model agency" which she never took out and would try to pay with for a single meal, or her "entourage of boys who followed her everywhere" behind her in file, and because "she'd never sat in chairs, she'd always lounge" while her entourage would lay at her feet and with her penchant for going barefoot everywhere, Luna became known as an eccentric.[108]

Bust of Nefertiti
Noire et Blanche; ofAlice Prinby Man Ray, 1926
Josephine Baker Poster from 1931

Theeccentriccharacter of Donyale Luna can be seen as both a hyperbolic alter-ego and an extension of afake it until you make itpersona which Luna may have thought of as a "metamorphosis". Luna usedcampto give off a larger than life character, using hairpieces, lengthened eyelashes, and "a collection of blue, green, yellow, purple and orange [colored contacts]... which she changed like underwear" to play fast and loose with defined boundaries she may have had as Peggy-Ann. She would both employ others and use her own designs for her clothes, experimenting withbindison herthird eye,and often wearing loose-fitting or flowing garments. These two (Peggy-Ann and Donyale) were succinctly distinct to Freeman, however; she spoke of viewing "Donyale" in photographs: "If I had seen something like me in a magazine as a child, I would have died laughing, or been scared... I find my own photographs weird,terribly sophisticatedand different ".[109]

Josephine Baker performing in Amsterdam in 1960

The alter ego of Donyale Luna was created in what Freeman termedfuture visioning,aNew Ageapproach culminating when she attended Central High Theater in Detroit. This technique drew from pantomime, experimental dance, and acting, and allowed the individual to create an altogether new identity by drawing on traits seen in "visions" from a desired individual like Baker. Luna would alter her attire, appearance, social circles, mannerisms, andparalinguistic featuressuch as the pitch in her voice, to create the character of Donyale, crafting subtle bodily perceptions to alter or shift the viewer's perception of her as a Black body.[citation needed][110][111][112][113]

Exemplified in a 1966 advertisement for a polyester peasant blouse forEbonymagazine, the iconography work was said[by whom?]to evoke the black and white images ofMan Ray,acknowledging the shift of the early 20th century "visual modernism" morphed into the "disjuncted body", a moving away from the classical Western notion of what a body should be to one of "distorted corporeal forms" originating in African Arts,ExpressionismandCubism,as well as the body language ofJosephine Bakerwhich Luna emulates in the advertisement to create a more "dynamic" image of herself and African-American visual imagery.[114]"Luna's referencing of [Baker and Nefertiti] within the European context signaled her identification with them", as Black women "heroines and tropes" which Luna used as a model to emulate what Black success could be presented as in an environment which responded to both figures by "primitivizing, sexualizing and ultimately dehumanizing [them in]... exotic or erotic roles that did not provide occupational transitions to more fulfilling, post spectacle lives".[115]

Brown notes that, in the early 20th century, "the expression of primitive glamour by self-consciously urban sophisticates such as Baker... could equally be produced as a reimagining of subject-object relations, a paradoxical critique and deployment of pleasures[,]... despite the motion, vitality, energy and erotic fission imagined to be at the heart of the primitive.... [Primitive glamour allowed for self-assertion so that the primitive role] offered something more than crippled self-expression: primitive glamour [relied]... on the use of personae, impersonation, or a kind of eclipse of the human subject,... [which although perilous] also offered substantial creative results... [so] rather than silencing artists with the gag of stereotype or the limitations of the market, [Primitive glamour] often enabled the merging of the subject and object" questioning perceptions of who and what it was to be "primitive", creating the formation of early Black glamour aesthetics in 1920's Europe, much as inPrimitivismaesthetics.[116]For instance in her "primitive" shoot withHarper's Bazaardressed in animal print in 1965, Luna "construct[s] and perform[s] an oppositional Black glamour" by using the provided clothes or "[tangible] things... [to] interpellate [her audience] in specific ways, combining narrative with history andmaterialityto structure specific gestures and movements... [in] working with her own effective engagement with the material as "dances with things", undoing the work of glamour as a white racial project ", thus creating an aspirational lifestyle for potential Black audiences.[19]And with "her gesticular poses in print magazines emphasized her angular frame, while her assertive body language—including a powerful stare called" the Look "by fashion magazines and later described as" ocular assault "... became her signature [pose]" used to entrance her audience, Freeman used "Donyale" to create an altogether new image oraestheticof what constitutedBlack glamour,a new beauty paradigm forAfrican-American visual imageryand Black subjectagency;developed from Baker's era of primitive glamour; into previously white spaces.[33][117]

She was believed to have met the artistMati Klarwein(who made psychedelic album covers for artists likeJimi Hendrix) throughSam Rivers,at an "occupational gathering" forMiles Davisin New York in 1964 where her likeness appears in his paintingTime,of a circle of gold leaf surrounded by scimitars representing the earth and sky. In the circle sits a "polymorphous figure... an aggregate of fire, water, multiple faces of beautiful women, female breasts, male genitalia, rainbow patterns, animal heads, skulls derived from Tibetan and Hindu religious imagery... topped off by Donyale Luna's trimorphic head", also portrayed in 1967 as in a self-portrait.[118]"Klarwein dedicated Milk n' Honey (1973), his book of reproduced paintings".[119]

In Europe she was also a part of the "rock music scene", having been featured in the Italian music video forPatty Pravo's songMichelle(1969).[120]

In her 1975 Playboy interview, she held the belief that beauty was "something not physical but something beyond that", she also noted that children were more readily accepting of her form of "beauty". She reported to the Argentinian Press in 1969: "Beauty is something else, something inexplicable that each person carries inside. This form of beauty related to Her visions. There's a great division coming about on this planet. There are going to be a lot of people who will die because they just don't know how to live. They don't know what life's about, they don't know how to give, how to love - nor do they want to. And those who are beautiful enough - I don't mean physically but something beyond that - they will have the chance to learn how to fly, to be beautiful, to rise above the level of the normal human - to be superior beings first and eventually gods and goddesses."[121]

She anticipated a (spiritual) "armageddon" she called "The Great Division" due to her perception that other peoples lack of understanding between themselves would lead to this great divide (based on superficial issues like physical beauty) in the future which she foresaw.[122]

Personal life

[edit]

Racial identity

[edit]

Donyale Luna identified as multi-racial. Throughout her life and career, Luna claimed to be of various mixed ethnic backgrounds, often playing down her African American ancestry as early as her teenage years.[4]Later in life she insisted that her biological father was a man with the surname Luna and that her mother was of Indigenous Mexican and Afro-Egyptian lineage. According to Luna, one of her grandmothers was reportedly a former Irish actress who married a black interior decorator; however, the historical accuracy of this is questionable.[123]She would also claim to be of "Polynesian" descent in high school. She often made up tall tales to make her seem more grandiose, part of the character of Donyale Luna she began in her teenage years, including beguiling stories designed to shock or amuse such as losing her parents in a car accident and being adopted, or replying to the question of her heritage with the line "I'm from the moon darling" which some have construed to mean she denied her heritage as a Black woman.[22]While 'her penchant for wearing blue contact lenses, was seen by some as race betrayal... [it] was probably part of a process of reinvention that had begun in her teenage years. In fact constructing a new identity [as Donyale Luna]'.[15]

Dream Cazzaniga on her mother leaving Detroit for New York writes of the likelihood of employment as a model how 'there were virtually no modeling opportunities for non-white faces anywhere other than dedicated African-American publications such as Ebony.... [Finding it amazing how Luna] was to leave home for Manhattan at that point in history, with no clear plans or steady income - just a telephone number hastily written down by a stranger.'[11]The only other industries which used models of color included the soft drinks industry such as Coca-Cola in 1957 or the Tobacco industry.[124]Due to the prejudices of a white dominated industry where white was the default and Black the other, with racist language, dress, and behavior used toward her in work and everyday life in New York, she moved from North America to Europe "where she likely found an audience more accepting of her skin color", describing herself as "multi-ethnic".[20]Europe at the time was seen as more accepting ofwhite-passingBlack models, such asOphelia Devore,who had modeled herself and had her own agency's models working in Paris, orDorothea Churchin the 1950s and unmistakably African-American models likeDolores Francine Rhiney[it],who was the first Black model to walk on the Europeancatwalk.Darker models such asHelen Williamslater became more accepted by the 1960s.[125][126]Inthe Sunday Times Magazinein 1966,Harold Carltonhailed her as "the completely New Image of the Negro woman. Fashion finds itself in an instrumental position for changing history, however slightly, for it is about to bring out into the open the veneration, the adoration, the idolization of the Negro".[35]

As for the United States, "until the advent of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s the fashion industry operated its own kind of apartheid, which entirely excluded non-white models from its magazines, advertising and catwalk shows."[22]Luna could work alongside models likeJean ShrimptonandVeruschkaand command the same salary, but was thought of as exotic, becoming a victim ofOthering(also seeDominance hierarchy) first by white then later the Black community-- compounded as both the "girl-next-door"and"exotic"negro model type.[127]With the advent of the civil rights movement in the United States 'so too did society's fascination with the "exotic" and "alien".... Almost against her own will, she became a symbol. Some people declared her a Masai warrior, Gauguinesque, Nefertiti reborn. Others claimed she was another species entirely - or from outer space!'.Timein 1966 called her a 'creature of contrasts. One minute sophisticated, the next fawnlike, now exotic and faraway'.[11]Racialist language such as being 'from outer space' was routinely used and was adopted by Luna in her Donyale character in a bid to overcome the boundaries this language created towards her as a Black body in the American public eye, and evolved other time to accommodate this prejudiced language. She said in late 1966 to a reporter that "Fashion photographers saw me as something different but I'm certain it has nothing to do with my color. I never think of myself as a brown girl".

Due to the color barrier, by then "the prestige of her modeling jobs had now shifted, from photo editorial work for Harper's Bazaar to the secondary... advertising market [inEbonymagazine] ".[128]The so-called secondary market, however, was worth an estimated $15 billion and white advertisers who began working in the market preferred Luna's "otherworldy features" (her long limbs, "oval-shaped face and almond eyes" ) not being traditionally readily associated with Black women,[129]as they alienated other African-Americans, and provided white advertisers with a manufactured sense ofracial superiorityand which may be considered astokenismon the behalf of the advertising agencies involved. Jane Hoffman described the evolution of theacceptable negrofrom white-passing models (first used in 1950s advertisements in magazines like Jet) to the 1960s replacement, theexotic negro,who was 'the Negro girl you'd think of as something else. She wasn't even beautiful-just a weird creature, some kind of space thing, She had to be so bizarre that no [Black person] could identify with [them]'. This typecasting of Black models limited Hoffman's own chances because she was "not Negro enough" to be Black under the respectability politics of white industry standards for Black models at that time. White American society preferred 'exotic' Luna over women like Hoffman as they provided an existing false narrative which fuelled their preexisting media biases about Blackness and its otherness, reinforced existing stereotypes, excluded Black women, and narrowed the definition of what Black beauty could take the appearance of how anacceptable negrowould appear, in opposition to whites who would be seen as the default of acceptability and whose appearance would not be called into question so easily.[130]

Indeed, they infantilized "Black women [who] could be sexy, sinuous, glamorous... marvellous entertainers... [b]ut when it came it fashion... magazines and advertising,... [they] simply not exist. They were not considered to have the necessary spending power that publishers and agencies wanted to exploit." All fashionable images of Black women were made through the primitivist lens which Baker herself used so successfully to create a new beauty standard in 1920s France. Until 1965, when Luna broke the color barrier as a model and created new media content which showed an African American woman for the first time in high fashion magazines within visible beauty standards, an African-American woman wearing scant clothing was "the stuff of the white man's sexual fantasies... [and until Luna the] kind of image a black girl could strive for;... [that or to] never fall back on imitating whatever the current white style of beauty happened to be as the standard begins with Black beauty from the beginning. For years, [Black] girls [had] literally been through torture in their efforts to achieve the full creative range of hairstyles... [using] dangerous hot combs... or chemical solutions like sodium hydroxide or lye which could burn the hair away... [or] styles of wigs that Black women wore in order to enhance their beauty in a myriad of ways beyond any limitations of tradition or culture. The same thing applied to cosmetics....The Supremes[then being] a perfect example of how Black girls built their glamour around their own ideals stemming from their own natural, rich and glorious beauty... and so theirs was the look longed for by blacks fromBrixtontoHarlem:there was simply no one else youcouldtry to imitate. "[40]Prevailing beauty standards made African-American women into Black bodies subject to jealousy based on the prevailing negative beauty standards of the day, a tightrope of racialized worldviews of white fashion photographers and beauty which Luna had to walk to create this new content.

In the factor of race, she further stated: "Most of my publicity has been because I'm dark-skinned. But I think the reaction would have been the same if I were white because of my [body] features" referring to her uncommon height and bodily proportions which these companies regarded asexotic.[130][131]Although claims are often made that comments like this is a sign that Luna was attempting to shift away from her African-American heritage, she would go on to carry out a publicanti-racial-discrimination campaignalongside David Anthony (ofThe Touchablesfame) with clothing designed by Mary Quant, being shot by David Bailey.[132]When she was denied service in 1968 in a Mayfair hotel, she also filed a complaint for racial discrimination with the board ofracial discrimination.The American print journalistJudy Stonewrote a now-infamous profile of Luna forThe New York Timesin 1968, describing Luna using racialist language such as "secretive, mysterious, contradictory, evasive, mercurial, and insistent upon her multiracial lineage—exotic, chameleon strands of Indigenous-Mexican, Indonesian, Irish, and, last but least escapable, African". Luna responded that "the civil-rights movement has my greatest support, but I don't want to get involved racially".[22]Dazed reporter Phillipa Burton notes how it today "makes for uncomfortable reading; the interviewer's obsessive probing of her multiracial lineage jarring with Luna's obvious displeasure at talking about it."[15]When Stone asked her about whether her appearances in Hollywood films would benefit the cause of Black actresses, Luna replied, "If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Asians, Native Americans, Africans, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldn't care less"[35][47]which are indicative of the limited and poor quality of jobs and opportunities available to Luna at the time in an environment which seemingly only accepted models who passed thebrown paper bag test.

Comments such as those have meant that she has been widely forgotten in favor of Beverly Johnson, while revealing the complex dynamics that she refused to be defined by in beingtypecastin the roles such asDiana Rossin the filmMahogany;a media portrayal that may have been a cause for conflict in her identity as a Black woman and someone in the public eye; such as when the protagonist of Mahogany is referred to as aninanimate objectand the misogyny of the modeling industry in the film which as a "Black body" altered how Luna was to be both remembered and perceived in the short and long term, placing more value on her as a body (valuing looks and the profit involved from her modeling) than Freeman as a person, thus disregarding her full worth andobjectifyingLuna.[133][134]After her death, Luna's widower Italian photographer Luigi Cazzaniga said that Luna self-identified as a "mulatta"and that she" felt rejected by the Black community and the white one ".[4]Her daughter notes "people longed for her to become a symbol of the African-American resistance; a role she struggled with as someone who identified as mixed race."[11][135]Penultimately with regards to the racism she faced in the US, Luna believed thatquestions surrounding her Blacknessand how shefit into American societybeing "a quarter Black"were" America's problem ", often attempting to escape labels major publications placed on her, replying to the Times:" Yeah, I'm an American on Black and white, but I'm me, I'm me "[2][33]in an attempt to reject American notions of race and to establish herself a more fully rounded human being.

By 1974 having not found full acceptance in Europe either, she was "caught between the insinuating effects of racial/cultural renunciation [and] sexual stereotype... Luna's response was to wear the mask [of one of Giacometti's skeletal sculptures] and... to become a negligible component of life, hovering between existence and nothingness" in Italy in the public eye. From this time on, she had problems figuring out who she was as a Black woman eventually becoming a "soul on ice": an entity encased and obscured by its own false image, which only hinted at the naked power and creative potential that lay beneath the surface ", or a shell of the former aspirations she held in her identity in youth.[136]From a heady time when "Luna had skipped modelings apprenticeship stage of endlless castings and rejections from racist fashion magazines, and come straight in at the top... [having] made the cover of a top fashion magazine, worn the world's most expensive dresses, and commanded a day rate of up to $100-an-hour - all by the age of 19".[137]

Romantic relationships

[edit]

In the mid-1960s, Luna was married to an anonymous German actor for ten months.[51]Later she reportedly was engaged to the Austrian-born Swiss actorMaximilian Schell,then to an unnamed Danish photographer and Georg Willing, a German actor who appeared in European horror films (such as 1970'sNecropolis) and with the Living Theatre.[35]She would frequently stop "short of making any lasting commitment to her suitors" though may have had this history as her history with men was checked, model Geraldine Smith recalled that in 1967, "Donyale had this crazy boyfriend who came in last night and smashed her over the head with a beer bottle" for instance.[138][139]

In 1968, Luna was purportedly dating the Australianpop artistMartin Sharp.[140] Around 1969 Luna was also romantically involved with German actorKlaus Kinski;however, the relationship ended when Kinski asked her entourage to leave his house in Rome, concerned that their drug use could damage his career.[141]

She would later move to Italy and continue her acting career there.[20]By September 1969 she had met her next partner, Luigi Cazzaniga at a fashion show in Rome. However, she was then rumored by the Italian press to be dating the Dominican actorJuan Fernandezwhom she met around 1969, and is thought to have been dating in 1972 when filmingSalome.Luna later married Italian photographer Luigi Cazzaniga after having met him at a party in Italy. For the first two months of their relationship they could not speak to each other as Cazzaniga only knew how to speak Italian, he noted he "liked... her [for] her love of creativity and for everything that wasn't square." They eventually married in California in 1976 and in 1977 they had a daughter, Dream Cazzaniga.[142]Dream's name was inspired byMartin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream"speech.[11]The couple eventually separated and, while still legally married, were estranged at the time of Luna's death of heroin overdose.[103]

Religion

[edit]

Luna converted toCatholicismas an adolescent, from her family'sPresbyterianroots.[143]

Legacy

[edit]

Since her death, Donyale Luna's 1966Voguecover has been hailed as opening doors for Black models and normalising the inclusion of African-American and African-Europeans on magazines previously catering to majority white demographics.[144]Pat Cleveland noted Luna as her own inspiration who (along withNaomi Sims) opened doors for other women of color in the 1960s.[145]Thus leading to more appearances for women, such as Sims 1967New York Timesfashion supplement cover and Beverly Johnsons AmericanVogue1974 cover for example. This continued withBritish Vogueusing Black modelsGail O'Neillin March 1986,Naomi Campbell5 times between December 1987 - August 2002, andJourdan Dunnin November 2015 as solo cover models underAnna Wintour,Elizabeth TilberisandAlexandra Shulman's tenures.[146][147]

Luna's reputation as one who often rejected type-cast labelling, has led to the promulgation oferasureof her achievements in the fashion industry. Phillipa Burton wrote in 2009, how "clean-cut models like Beverly Johnson andIman,whose lives were not to end murkily through an overzealous use of heroin, were louder and prouder ambassadors of the "Black is beautiful" message. Their more palatable versions of Black womanhood loom large in the public consciousness today. Eccentric Luna, on the other hand, who was eternally cagey about her racial identity, waxed lyrical about LSD in interviews and had an endearing habit of not wearing shoes, has, for the most part, been forgotten... depressingly, the biggest triumph of Luna's career – her groundbreakingVoguecover of 1966 – represents a war that is very much still being waged. Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm model agency... grimly admits that a Black model gracing the cover of a mainstream publication is 'still unusual' "and it has been noted she may have been part of thetokenismof advertising agencies to lure in Black consumers. "[15]This being consistent with the fact that over time, the loss of African-American history has prompted the creation offirst lists.Her career has thus been described as a "meteoric ascent to fame and freefall into anonymity [which] frequently morphs into bodily speculation and social isolation".[77]

However, the designer Stephen Burrows also noted "[Luna] was ahead of the Black model thing. There weren't too many around [in the US in the 1960s]" when commenting on Lunas' extravagant outlook and attitude towards her own career opportunities.[2]Due in part to the timing of the "Black is beautiful" movement only gaining traction towards the end of Luna's career as "Black models didn't truly enjoy their coming out until the seventies" and her New Age beliefs, models such asBeverly Johnsonnow feature more prominently on Black-firsts lists, even though Luna's cover in 1966 predates Johnson's by eight years.[2]Luna is usually today therefore regarded as "a key player in the mid- to late 1960s fashion, film, and experimental theater scenes" who by the 1970s was "unable to move beyond the external and self-imposed limitations for someone of her idiosyncratic temperamental and tenuous lifestyle... [which] united to diminish and obscure her once impressive figure, which then led to her publicerasure".[148]".Thus Luna leaves behind a mixed legacy as a model who both broke the color barrier and as an underground actress, best remembered for her 1966 Vogue cover.

In her role as the first Black model on the cover of a major print magazine, Luna has had "renewed interest" in her modeling career on social media, fashion bloggers, and among Black business owners. With the promotion of editors at British Vogue such asEdward Enninfulin 2017, British Vogue covers starring Black models have also increased. She has also appeared in the 2008 all-BlackVogueissue and was recognized byNaomi Campbellin her CFDA acceptance speech in 2019,[20][53][3]andNan Goldindedicated the Exhibit Sirens for her. She was also the inspiration forPat McGrathfor her sixth edition of her Mothership makeup palette.[149]TheAfro-BrazilianTV personality Thelma Assis has also recreated theTwenphotoshoot on the July 2020 cover ofHarper's Bazaar Brazil.[150]In November 2020, actressZendayaappeared in a photoshoot inspired by Luna for the 50th anniversary ofEssence.[151]TheHBO MaxdocumentaryDonyale Luna: Supermodelwas released in September 2023, co-produced by her daughter Dream Cazzaniga.[152]

Filmography

[edit]
Year Title Role Notes
1965 Camp
1966 Screen Test #3 Herself Uncredited
1966 Screen Test #4 Herself Uncredited
1966 Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? Mannequin/Model Alternative title:Qui êtes vous, Polly Maggoo?
1967 Donyale Luna Snow White
1968 Skidoo God's Mistress Credited as Luna
1969 Fellini Satyricon Enotea Alternative title:Satyricon
1969 Dillinger is Dead Background role Uncredited
1970 Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali Herself
1972 Salomé Salomè
1976 Il Festival del proletariato giovanile al Parco Lambro Herself
1996 The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus Herself Lovely Luna
Released posthumously (filmed in 1968)

References

[edit]
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  8. ^While some sources give her birth name as Peggy Anne Donyale Aragonea Pegeon Freeman, the name on her birth certificate is Peggy Ann Freeman.
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  51. ^ab"Fashion: The Luna Year".Time.April 1, 1966. Archived fromthe originalon October 22, 2007.RetrievedMay 1,2010.
  52. ^"VIVIANE VENTURA Charlotte Rampling DONYALE LUNA London Life magazine 1966 vtg UK".Retrieved August 11, 2020
  53. ^ab"Rootstein Display Mannequin: Donyale Luna".www.rootstein.com.
  54. ^Jet, 30 March 1967, p 60 Negro Mannequins in London Stir Controversy
  55. ^POPism: The Warhol Sixties,Andy Warhol, Pat Hackett, pp. 299, 1980.
  56. ^Beauty's Enigma, Ben Arogundade, 2012, p 19
  57. ^Limited, Alamy."Stock Photo - Entertainment - Donyale Luna - London".Alamy.{{cite web}}:|last=has generic name (help)
  58. ^Guardian Staff (November 16, 2015)."Mia Farrow at the witness box: archive, 16 November 1968".the Guardian.
  59. ^Beauty's Enigma, Ben Arogundade, 2012, p 22
  60. ^The Press Telegram, November, 1968
  61. ^Jet, November 1968
  62. ^Donald Zec,Analysing,Daily Mirror,April 28, 1969, p. 17, see 6.
  63. ^https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/edmonde-charles-roux-obituary.html(Accessed 18.03.2021)
  64. ^https://theartsdesk.com/books/nina-sophia-miralles-glossy-debut-author-takes-vogue-and-cond%C3%A9-nasties(Accessed 18.03.2021)
  65. ^TIME,The Lunar Year, April 1, 1966.
  66. ^"Remembering Donyale Luna, The First Woman Of Colour Ever To Appear On The Cover Of Vogue". British Vogue.
  67. ^TIME, The Lunar Year, April 1, 1966
  68. ^abBeauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 17.
  69. ^Paris Match,March 5, 1966.
  70. ^Elle Magazine,July 7, 1966, see alsohttp://www.doucementlematin.com/archives/tag/elle/index-38.htmlin French.
  71. ^British Pathe, 1967, Sport.
  72. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 23.
  73. ^LA FAMOSA MODELO DONYALE LUNA SE CASARA A PRINCIPIOS DE 1974, Spain, 1974/
  74. ^The Migrant's Time, Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell, 2009, pp. 85–86.
  75. ^Popular Photography, Volume 76 CBS Magazines, 1975 pp.98 - 101
  76. ^"DONYALE LUNA - FORMIDABLE MAG - Style Icon".
  77. ^abThe Migrant's Time, Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell, 2009, pp. 81–82.
  78. ^"Andy Warhol's Interview October 1974 Donyale Luna Philippe Petit Hiram Keller Michael Winner Martha".Beatchapter.
  79. ^The Migrant's Time, Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell, 2009, p. 85.
  80. ^abFinkelman, Paul (2009). Finkelman, Paul (ed.).Encyclopedia of African American History: 5-Volume Set, Volume 1.Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. p. 351.ISBN978-0-195-16779-5.
  81. ^Gross, Michael (2011).Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women.HarperCollins. p. 238.ISBN978-0-062-06790-6.
  82. ^Burton, Philippa (December 13, 2014)."Luna Space Model".Dazed.RetrievedNovember 21,2020.
  83. ^ab"Donyale Luna".warholstars.org.
  84. ^Zandra Rhodes: 50 Fabulous Years in Fashion,Dennis Nothdruft, Zandra Rhodes, 2019, p. 61.
  85. ^Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture,Richard J. Powell, p. 87.
  86. ^Method Modeling, Valerie Cragin, 1980,ISBN0-8227-4045-1
  87. ^Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Richard Powell, 2009, p 108
  88. ^abBeauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 16.
  89. ^https://donyaleluna.w0rdpress.com/[permanent dead link]April 17, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  90. ^Life, Keith Richard, 2010
  91. ^Powell, Richard J. (2009).Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture.
  92. ^"Late Show London (1966– )|Episode #1.26",IMDb.
  93. ^""The Eamonn Andrews Show" Episode #2.31 (TV Episode 1966) - IMDb ".IMDb.
  94. ^Powell, Richard J. Powell (2009). Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. University of Chicago Press. pp. 82–83.
  95. ^Richard Powell, 2009 Cutting a Figure
  96. ^The Last Word: Dorothy Dean and Black Fugitivity in Andy Warhol's My Hustler, Osterweil, Ara Art Journal, 2019-10-02, Vol.78 (4), p.58-75
  97. ^Koestenbaum, Wayne (2003).""Andy Warhol: Screen Tests": Moma Qns, New York - Critical Essay ".ArtForum.Archived from the original on November 14, 2007.RetrievedJanuary 11,2024.{{cite news}}:CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  98. ^Powell (2009),Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture,p. 108.
  99. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, pp. 23–24.
  100. ^https://mubi.com/films/dillinger-is-dead/cast(Accessed 25 November 2020)
  101. ^David R. Ignatius, "The Moviegoer: Fellini Satyricon at the Cheri 3", The Harvard Crimson, 6 April 1970
  102. ^Panorama Magazine, 1975
  103. ^abArogundade, Ben (November 11, 2012)."The tragic tale of Donyale Luna".The Telegraph.RetrievedFebruary 26,2013.
  104. ^"Black fashion model dies".The Spokesman-Review.May 19, 1979. p. 10.RetrievedFebruary 26,2013.
  105. ^Cavalier Men magazine, 1967
  106. ^Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, Richard Powell, 208 p 108
  107. ^Sex, Surrealism, Dali and Me: The memoirs of Carlos Lozano, Clifford Thurlow, 2011
  108. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, pp. 20–21.
  109. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, pp. 19–20.
  110. ^The 'Black Body' is a modern term to refer to the corporeal theoretical paradigm of stereotypes placed on African-Americans, and how this can reduce their value in society as individuals and human beings.
  111. ^"African American identity and the concept of the black body are tragically intertwined through what the residue of slavery has left behind in the form of" body economics "– a fixation on power over the black body is woven into identity, agency and power over your own body, as well as social and political powers over the body.",Deconstructing the Body: Identity and Power in Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, Zoe Lloyd-Williams, 17th October 2017
  112. ^"the black body does not describe the actual appearance of any real person or group of people."Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body,Young, Harvey, 1975–2010, p. 7.
  113. ^"the black body comes prejudged, and as a result it is placed in needless jeopardy.... You are a black body first, before you are a kid walking down the street",https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/black-body-re-reading-james-baldwins-stranger-village"Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin's 'Stranger in the Village'", Teju Cole,The New Yorker,August 19, 2014.
  114. ^Powell, Richard J. Powell (2009). Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. University of Chicago Press. p. 86
  115. ^The Migrant's Time: Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell.
  116. ^Glamour in Six Dimensions: Modernism and the Radiance of Form, Judith Christine Brown, 2009 p.126
  117. ^Richard J. Powell; "Who's Zoomin' Who?: The Eyes of Donyale Luna".Nka,November 1, 2016; pp. 14–21
  118. ^See external links
  119. ^Richard J. Powell (2009). Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture
  120. ^The Migrant's Time: Rethinking Art History and Diaspora, Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell, p 85 (also see external links)
  121. ^"La belleza es otro cosa, algo inexplicable que cada uno lleva dentra.", Cueto, Rúa, Hamak, Morduchowicz y Consultores Asociados, 1969, Análisis
  122. ^Playboy,April 1975.
  123. ^Parade[permanent dead link]-The Modesto Bee
  124. ^Finkelman, Paul (2009). Finkelman, Paul (ed.).Encyclopedia of African American History:5-Volume Set, Volume 1. 1. Oxford University Press, p. 351.
  125. ^"Supreme Models: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion", Marcellas Reynolds, 2019, p. 17.
  126. ^Wilson, Eric (July 23, 2006). "Dorothea T. Church, 83, Pioneering Model, Dies".The New York Times.Retrieved October 12, 2010.
  127. ^Fashioning Models:Image, Text and Industry, Joanne Entwistle, Elizabeth Wissinger, 2012
  128. ^Cutting a Figure, Richard Powell, 2009, p 96
  129. ^Beauty's Enigma, Ben Arogundade, 2012, p 8ISBN978-0-9569394-4-9
  130. ^abDionne, Evette (July 11, 2013)."Do You Know Donyale Luna?".
  131. ^Detroit Free Press,Colleen O'Brien, 1966.
  132. ^Daily Mirror, Wednesday 15 June 1966, page 11
  133. ^"How the" Strong Black Woman "Identity Both Helps and Hurts".Greater Good.
  134. ^"In 1975's 'Mahogany,' Diana Ross timeless, but the attitudes aren't".chicago.suntimes.com.August 21, 2015.
  135. ^"Th Multiracial Experience".pewsocialtrends.org.June 11, 2015.
  136. ^The Migrant's Time: Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,p. 86.
  137. ^Beauty's Enigma, Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 10,ISBN978-0-9569394-4-9.
  138. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 13,ISBN978-0-9569394-4-9.
  139. ^POPism: The Warhol Sixties,Andy Warhol, Pat Hackett, 2006.
  140. ^Sharpest, Lowell Tarling, [2017]2021, Vol.2, p.139, Australia
  141. ^Christian David:Kinski: Die Biographie.Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, 2006, pp. 194–195.
  142. ^Beauty's Enigma,Ben Arogundade, 2012, p. 23,ISBN978-0-9569394-4-9.
  143. ^"Metamorphosis: Peggy Ann Freeman becomes Donyale Luna".Donyale Luna Blog.September 9, 2010.RetrievedMay 17,2023.
  144. ^London's Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958-1971, Felix Fuhg 2021, p.263
  145. ^"Pat Cleveland On Rooming With Donyale Luna, Having Marian Anderson As A Godmom And Her Iconic Modeling Career".Madame Noire.July 20, 2017.RetrievedSeptember 10,2021.
  146. ^SeeList of British Vogue cover models
  147. ^"All The Times A Black Model Covered British Vogue".Refinery 29.November 13, 2017.RetrievedJuly 12,2021.
  148. ^The Migrant's Time, Rethinking Art History and Diaspora,Saloni Mathur, Richard Powell, 2009, p, 88.
  149. ^Stephenetta (isis) Harmon,"A New Pat McGrath Mothership Palette Is Landing Soon",Hype Hair,August 26, 2019.
  150. ^ILCA MARIA ESTEVÃO,"Thelma Assis, do BBB20, surge de cabeça raspada em capa de revista de moda",METRÓPOLES,July 15, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2020. In Brazilian Portuguese
  151. ^"Zendaya Channels Iconic Black Supermodel Donyale Luna in Gorgeous Essence Cover Shoot".
  152. ^Donyale Luna: Supermodel
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